


All of Us

by cgf_kat



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Character Death, Complicated Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Future Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-03 05:57:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14562363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cgf_kat/pseuds/cgf_kat
Summary: Pidge and Lance have been together for three years - since after the war ended and they returned home to Earth. But when one of them wants to take the next step, the past steps in to complicate matters in more ways than one. While reconnecting with their friends to help someone they all care about, the two of them will have to figure out where to go from here. But will they get the chance?





	1. Chapter 1

“So...Lance proposed to me, but...I turned him down,” I tell the silent, comatose figure in the hospital bed. “That happened. Yesterday.”

I can’t get his face when I told him no out of my head. Like I’d betrayed him. Like he didn’t understand. “Wh-what do you mean? Why…?”

I backed away as he got up off his knees, brushing the dirt from the ground in my parents’ backyard off his knees. “Lance...I care about you, but I’ve always been your consolation prize, and we both know it. That’s been fine until now...we needed each other. Not many people can understand what we’ve both been through. But I’m not going to be that for the rest of my life.”

“What are you talking about?” he questioned. “You are not—”

“I am. It was always Allura for you, even after she and Lotor—”

“They’re married, Katie, why would I still be pining over her?”

“Don’t ‘Katie’ me right now! And see, you at least admit you used to!”

Lance shook his head in frustration, and I guess I’ll always wonder if I misread him. If that frustration was really because I was wrong. 

“Kind of hard to deny that one…”

Allura and Lance tried to keep it on the down-low the few weeks - or was it months? - they were together back then, after we thought Lotor had betrayed us. In the end it was all part of the plan to help solidify his rule of the empire and bring peace - in the end it was because Lotor was trying to protect all of us, including Allura - but for a while there we all thought it was real. 

Allura was quiet for days. Distant. Threw herself into Voltron’s battles with the scattered Galra forces with new vigor, and none of us blamed her. We’d all seen that maybe there was...something, developing with Lotor before it all went down. Before he suddenly declared Voltron an enemy of the new Galra empire. 

Then she got better. And early one morning not long after, I saw Lance coming out of her chambers. They never announced anything, but eventually we all just sort of knew. 

And Lotor’s plan worked. The divided Galra empire reunited against a common enemy, and with all of the generals loyal once again to an emperor they thought was with them, with the old ways again, their tongues were loosened. It was easier to root out those too stuck in the past, who would never agree to a Galra empire that peacefully ruled a free people. And of course, even before we realized it was all a ruse, he was doing everything in his power to be certain that Voltron - that Allura, that none of us - would ever actually be harmed. 

Lotor’s attempt to both bring peace and keep us safe didn’t work for all of us...but that wasn’t actually his fault. 

“Did I do the wrong thing with Lance?” I ask my silent companion. “Granted, I don’t really know why I’m telling you...but I guess, you were always pretty good at listening. I think. It’s getting harder to remember…”

How long has it been? Six years? Seven? No, five years since the war finally ended and almost four since we all came home, so maybe more like eight, since I’ve really talked to him. This him. The real him.

“I could really use your help right now.” My vision is misting over and I have to blink furiously to clear it. I’m torturing the ends of the ponytail I finally grew back out last year, too, twisting and pulling at the longest strands that hang over my shoulder. 

It’s almost hard to breathe, my chest hurts so much. I believed everything I said to Lance - that our relationship was one born of need and necessity. We love each other, but not that way. Not really. I always thought it would be easy to let go, when the time came. When we’d outgrown our need of each other in that way. So why does it hurt like this?

“Lance, you’re going to find someone else someday--someone you can really give yourself to because they don’t know Allura, or me...someone who wasn’t there, so it doesn’t have to be complicated.”

He reached out to me. I think he wanted to pull me in, but I wouldn’t let him. I did give him my hand, at least. “Pidge...if I found somebody else someday, they’d be the consolation prize. Don’t do this.”

Something cracked in me then, I think. I squeezed his hand. “Look...I’m not saying it has to be over right now, I just mean...we both know where this is going. We were always just...an interim.”

“An interim?” He laughed once, short and harsh, and yanked his hand away. “Gee, tell me how you really feel.”

“Lance, come on, don’t be like that. I’ll always—”

“Care, I know, you said that,” he spat back bitterly. But the vitriol seeped away almost immediately and he just looked tired. “Sorry. I uhm...me too. You know that, right?”

“Of course.” I reached out for his hand again. “Come on, come back inside. We don’t have to do this now. Let just...fire up the video games or something.”

Lance shook his head absently, and the ring box he’d been squeezing in one hand he finally slipped back into the pocket of his jacket. “That’s okay. I should go.”

“Lance…” He caught me off guard then, and did manage to get me into a hug this time. It took a moment or two, but I returned it. “You’ll see, Lance,” I said into his shoulder. “You’ll be okay. We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us. Just at some point were going to have to make them a little more separately.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. His breath was warm on my neck. 

“You know you can always count on me for video games and nonsense, right?” I teased gently.

A silent nod. He wasn’t letting go, and at that point I wasn’t going to make him. It seemed too cruel. We stood there for a long time, and after another moment or so I didn’t want to let go, either. It felt like...the end of an era, somehow. 

Lance was the last of the other paladins I still saw regularly. I’d always known that when that inevitably changed, I would really have to face the fact that it was time to move on from Voltron. I would always have that family - we still kept in touch, of course - but it would be different from now on. 

Now on. Literally from that moment. Because I knew when we held on for so long that Lance was going to leave. He wasn’t going to stick around a while longer. Even if I was only making him realize the truth, I’d hurt him. He would forgive me - he’d already forgiven me - but after the five year celebration of the anniversary of the end of the war next week, he was going to leave. Move back home to Cuba, probably, and stay there this time.

When he finally released me Lance mumbled that he would get his things from the drawer I’d given him in my room two years ago, and get going. My throat hurt by then so I couldn’t answer. I just nodded, and he didn’t look at me as he turned and headed back into the house. 

It wasn’t until he’d disappeared inside that I realized the shoulder of my shirt was wet. 

I didn’t cry. Not then. Lance got his things together and he was laughing with my parents on the way out of the house. Something Dad said. He and Mom didn’t know what had happened. They didn’t see the bag; he’d already put it in his car. Lance smiled at me as he left to head back to his apartment. Like he was trying to tell me not to be sad. 

“You don’t have to go, you know,” I told him. “My parents have practically adopted you by now anyway. Dinner is soon.”

“Nah, I should go home and call and see how my family’s doing getting ready to come over for the stuff next week.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek, maybe just because my parents weren’t far away. “Bye, Pidge,” he whispered.

I was still in too much shock to see it then. That behind that smile he was broken. He wasn’t only hurt because the supposedly inevitable had finally come. But it’s so clear looking back now that I suddenly feel like I must have been crazy not to notice. 

A strangled sound comes out of my throat, and it’s so loud in the quiet room of the long term care facility, I’m not sure it was me at first. A tear trails beside my nose, and I know in a moment it will all come out, but I guess that’s all right here. The silent form in the bed isn’t going to tell anyone. I don’t even know if he can really hear me.

I sob. “Shiro, what did I do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I can't wait to hear what you think, and I always try to reply to comments. :)


	2. Chapter 2

I don’t really notice I’m clinging to Shiro’s hand until I feel something. A movement under my fingers. It isn’t the first time there have been small involuntary movements, but this is different. 

This isn’t a twitch or a tick. It’s like his fingers are trying to curl around mine. It’s enough to stop my tears in their tracks. “Shiro…?”

When I glance up at his face, I think...I think he’s moved. His head has tilted toward me. I don’t know much about comas - and even if I did, it might not help, since the doctors here tell us his state is a little different than anything they’ve ever seen on earth - but I know what just happened is more than we’ve gotten out of him in the five years since we found him.

“Shiro?” I ask again. I hold my breath and squeeze his hand, waiting for any sign of reaction.

Nothing. But the doctors need to know. Surely it means something? I almost knock my chair over trying to get out of the room, scrambling to find anyone who will listen to me. “Hey! Something happened…!”

An hour later, no one can tell me anything definitive. There’s no sign of change in his condition according to their tests. Whatever happened doesn’t happen again. As everyone leaves and I’m alone with Shiro again, my first instinct is to call Lance. I pull out my tablet and get as far as punching up his name in my frequent contacts.

My thumb is hovering over the call button on the orange screen before I remember that maybe calling Lance right now isn’t the best idea ever. But because it’s Shiro - and only because it’s Shiro, I tell myself - I press the button anyway.

It takes a while for him to answer, but I guess I expected that. “Pidge? Are you okay?”

“I…” The fact that’s the first thing he asks feels like a knife in my chest. “Yeah…”

“Oh...good. Uhm...look, really, you can call any time, and I mean it, but right this second...I’d really kind of rather...not do this.”

I swallow. “Lance, this isn’t about...that. Shiro moved.”

I can almost hear him switching gears - putting our personal problems behind him for now. It’s an ability he didn’t have when I met him. “He what?”

He’s come so far. I knew that before, but it’s like it’s all hitting me so hard right now. Like I’m noticing it all again for the first time. 

“He moved,” I repeat. “As in...more than we’ve seen before. It was different; I know something is different, Lance. He tried to hold my hand, and he tried to turn toward me. He’s never done either of those things before.”

“I’ll be right there.”

That isn’t exactly what I expected, and I don’t have time to protest. He’s already hung up, and all I can do is wait.

I really, really hope this isn’t all in my head. 

When Lance arrives he hesitates in the doorway of Shiro’s room, as if he didn’t really think this through, like he thinks he needs permission to come in or something because I’m there and yesterday happened. I wave him in from my station by the bed. I’ve just been sitting here, watching Shiro, because I didn’t know what else to do.

“What’d they say?” Lance asks.

I shrug. “Not much...they’re saying nothing is different but...it is. I know it is.”

Lance tilts his head and squints his eyes, in purposefully over-exaggerated movements. Maybe he’s trying to get a laugh to cut the tension. “Huh...yeah, his face looks different than it did last night.”

“You were here last night?”

The playfulness fades and he winces, looking away. “Yeah.”

Was he here for the same reason I came? To have someone to talk to? “Oh…”

Lance shrugs and clears his throat. “Anyway, if he reacted to you, maybe there’s more of a chance with two of us.” He makes a beeline for the other side of the bed and takes Shiro’s other hand. “Come on, man…”

We don’t really expect anything to happen...at least I don’t think we do. But we stay like that for a while, just sitting on either side of him, and the room is quiet except for the soft beeping of the machines.

“Everyone’s going to be here in a few days,” I say after a while. “Allura will bring the castle; the lions will be here...I think we should try pulling him out.”

Lance makes a face, sympathetic but skeptical. “I want Shiro to wake up as much as anyone, Pidge, but we tried that. Twice.”

“Years ago. After we found him. He’s been safe since then. Taken care of. He’s healthier than he was then, and he may be closer to the surface, or something. Maybe it’ll work.”

We found Shiro after the war ended. We came home, to Earth, just for a little while, but we went back after that for more than a year. The universe still needed Voltron to help free remaining worlds from straggling Galra warlords and jumpstart efforts to continue rebuilding intergalactic civilization. Voltron was the symbol of the free alliance. Lotor was still called emperor and Allura became his empress, but it’s more reverence and tradition than power. It doesn’t really mean anything anymore. 

Shiro had been squirreled away in a backwater Galra prison on a tiny moon at the back end of the edge of the known universe. Forgotten because they didn’t need him anymore...they’d already produced a clone, brainwashed it, and let it find us. Granted, that didn’t entirely work out for them in the end; Haggar’s biggest plot was her undoing...but even when not-Shiro overcame his programming and died taking out the witch who created him, that still didn’t leave us any closer to finding the original.

We’d almost given up hope when we finally found him, and even then, he was already like this when we liberated the prison. Comatose. Unresponsive. No reunions. We still don’t know if the Galra put him in this state forcefully or if he just...ended up this way as some kind of self-defense mechanism. 

“Maybe…” Lance trails. “But...you can’t get your hopes up. I mean, not to be a downer...”

“I know what you mean. I know what they said.” 

That Shiro will probably never wake up. Because he was part of the team that helped liberate the universe, the Garrison still pays for all of this...his care, even physical therapy so his limbs don’t waste away. Just in case. But the doctors have always said any change is very unlikely. 

I’ve just never believed them. 

“I’m still behind you,” Lance says. “Always. We should try...I’m just saying.” 

Lance is trying to protect me. I know that. We tried everything when we found Shiro. Allura and her burgeoning Altean Alchemy skills, Lotor offered the best of Galra medicine and technology...nothing worked. Our last-ditch effort was to try pulling him out, waking him up, using Voltron. Because Lance had been convinced that on Olkari when we all used our bayards to go into the force that connected us to Voltron...to some other plain...that it had been the real Shiro we’d somehow connected to. That Shiro tried to speak to him. 

So we did it again. We formed Voltron, and we went in. There wasn’t an empty space for Shiro inside, not in the black paladin’s place - Keith was there - but as if Voltron knew who we were trying to reach out to, there was a new space in the middle...our life forces flowing into it, reaching out. For a moment a form flickered there, but then it was gone. That was as far as we got both times we tried. 

“But you’ll be with me to talk to the others about it?” I ask.

“Of course.”

I think I want to say something else, even though I’m not sure what, but I don’t get the chance. Someone knocks on the open door of the room. 

“Katie? I thought you’d be here.”

It’s Dad. He still doesn’t know what happened yesterday, and he smiles at Lance as if everything is normal. “I heard there was some excitement?”

“I messaged you?” I honestly don’t remember.

“I did,” Lance says. He grins at me like he does, like for a moment everything is normal after all. “I know how you are when you’re excited; I thought you might not have have remembered to.”

We fill Dad in on the not-really-news-but-it-might-be. He stands there with that guilty look on his face he still gets sometimes. I wish I could make it not happen, but I think he feels guilty, sometimes, that he came home to Earth when he did. That he was relatively safe here for most of the war, even if the Garrison did need to know what was going on out there. Even if he did just as much if not more here than he could have out there. 

“Well there is nothing wrong with hoping,” Dad says. “It would be wonderful if it were possible.”

“We’re going to try,” Lance says. “We have to.”

Dad nods again, before he shifts his focus to me. “Katie, your mother’s here with me. We were going to see Matt, if you’d like to join us. Lance, you’re certainly welcome too.”

Lance shrugs. “That’s okay, Mr. H. You guys can go; I think I’m gonna stay here for a while.” But his eyes shift to me, asking if that’s all right. If I’ll be okay if he doesn’t come. I shrug, as small as I can.

It’s okay. Stay here. Keep an eye on Shiro. I guess I have to get used to doing things without Lance now, anyway.

I let dad go on ahead, hanging back a moment in the room. “Lance...what about you?”

“What about me?” He’s trying to smile again, put me off guard, make me think he’s fine.

“Are you…? How are you?”

The facade falters, just a little. “Oh, you know...the usual. Kicking around ideas about my next big career move. My brother Marco did make a very interesting offer a while back involving something about chickens. Or maybe it was rabbits. Though if all else fails I can hijack Red and we can restart that rope-dancing gig. That was a hit.”

“Or you could stay here. You love assisting the instructors at the Garrison.”

Lance shrugs. “There are flight schools everywhere…”

So he’s determined to leave? But in recent months he’d been talking about going back to school. College. Getting certified to really teach, not just flight instructing. What happened to that? 

“I guess.”

He looks at me for a moment, his eyes shifting briefly to the door where my dad disappeared. “You haven’t said anything to your parents, have you?” he asks quietly.

“No...didn’t really know how to.”

“Yeah. Me either.” 

We don’t say anything else, and standing there is unbearably awkward. “Anyway...thanks for coming,” I tell him.

I don’t wait for an answer because I don’t think I could take him trying to smile at me one more time today. Not when it’s my fault we’re in this mess. 

***

_Six and a Half Years Ago_

That night is still a recurring nightmare. Allura said something before it all happened - something about Shiro. Late one night when most of us were in the kitchen. About him not being himself. That was when we all found out we’d had similar suspicions. We were worried. 

But key members of the coalition were coming to the castle later that same week for a meeting, and we didn’t want to think it was serious enough to need immediate attention. There was more than one explanation, surely. 

Maybe if we had done something then...but we didn’t. And we thought something was wrong with him, but I don’t think we ever really thought…definitely nothing near the truth. How could we have? 

One moment everything was fine, and the next the castle’s power was out - not everything, not the gravity and air; we were in space after all - but everything else important. Communications, lights, weapons, all down. 

Hangars were sealed; there was no way out. We were fish in a barrel. Fish who could fight, but fish just the same. None of us knew what was happening until something started cutting people down in the dark. 

Maybe he knew we suspected, overheard our conversation maybe, and that’s why his programming really kicked in. Or maybe Haggar knew. 

The Blades that were there herded everyone into the dining room to keep them together, safer, while Keith, who knew the castle better like the rest of us, joined us splitting up in the corridors to search for what we thought was an intruder. 

I split up with Matt. We had the lights in my armour’s helmet and and he had one small light, but it’s not like we had time to go searching for more. It wasn’t enough.

“I thought the castle had some kind of emergency lighting system?” Matt said at one point.

“It does…”

“The power isn’t all out, so it’s not the crystal. Shouldn’t those emergency lights be on as long as the crystal is intact?”

I swallowed, and my mouth was dry. “Unless someone knew they were there and that they needed to purposefully route around them.”

An uneasy silence followed. “I don’t like this,” he said. 

There was no warning, after that. Barely a sound. We made a cautious turn into a new corridor, Matt first, me covering our backs. There was a faint flash of purple, that glow I should have recognized, but I didn’t have time to before I was slammed back against the wall, pinned, Matt’s body covering mine. 

A strangled sound. Matt. I could barely see around him, and I was dazed from the impact, but when my vision cleared…

Shiro, pinning us. But his eyes were yellow. And half of the hand of his Galra arm was buried in my brother’s side. 

“NOO!” 

Even as I heard myself screaming, I was coming to a conclusion. Not Shiro. Not Shiro at all. Shiro wouldn't attack us. Shiro wouldn’t stab my brother, his friend, yank his Galra hand out with a twist on purpose, just to hear Matt scream, and toss him halfway across the corridor like a sack of potatoes. 

Shiro wouldn’t be smiling while he did that.

My bayard was ready. When I could move my arms I sliced up, screaming without words, cutting a swath across not-Shiro’s chest. I think it only made him angry, but I didn’t care then. At least it made him fall back a step and gave me room to shoot out with the bayard’s grappling and wrap the electrified cord around him. 

The shock didn’t stop him. Not fast enough. I might have died anyway, if Lance hadn’t shown up and shot from behind when he did. That dropped him, finally, and after one more solid shock he was unconscious.

I heard Lance’s confusion and disbelief. I heard the others barreling around the corner and everything they said, but it was like they were far away.

“Matt!” I scrambled to him. “MATT!” He was breathing, but barely. His eyes were wild until I leaned over him and grabbed his hand, until he had me to focus on. He wasn’t bleeding as badly as I was afraid of. The heat of the Galra arm had practically cauterized the wound. “Hang on, hang on…”

“Th-that...that’s not Shiro,” Hunk was saying.

“It can’t be.” Keith said. “He wouldn’t…”

“Guys, HELP!” I shouted. 

Lance was already at my shoulder. “We have to get him to a pod!”

***

_Now_

When I find my parents in the parking lot, they don’t think it’s strange that I’m silent on the short ride, and I’m grateful they’re not prying. They usually don’t when we come here. Sometimes it’s easier - sometimes we’re red-faced from laughing so hard, telling favorite stories - but sometimes there are still days like today, when none of us say much. 

The sun is starting to set when we make it to the small churchyard, casting orange light across the grass. Orange like Garrison uniforms and the resistance. Shades of color that remind me of Matt. 

And there’s the small church we grew up in off to the right, making trouble Sunday mornings because we couldn’t stop giggling at each other, and off to the left at the entrance to the cemetery is the stone bench under a tree where Matt sat with me after our grandmother died. I was six and funerals were confusing ad there were too many people. He just stayed there with me, comforting me and keeping everyone else away. 

I sit on that bench now, to give my parents some time alone with him. I’ve spent a lot of time on this bench since we buried Matt here, I think. 

“Matt...I did something really stupid,” I say with a sigh. 

Actually, now that I think about it, I guess I’ve spent a lot of time in the last few years talking to people who can’t answer me - Matt, Shiro...then again, before Voltron, I was just the girl who spent more time with machines and books than people, so in a way it’s not really a stretch. More of a reversion. Lance just kept me from sinking too deep. 

I can almost hear Matt answering, though - after he laughs at me. 

_What have you done now, Pidge?_

“I screwed things up with Lance...probably because I was overthinking things again. I’m always doing that…but what if I was right the first time? What if he doesn’t really—?” I stop. “I’m doing it again.”

_Don’t look at me; I do it, too._

“Yeah, I know you always did it too...some help you are.” I swallow.

_So what’s the other thing you do? You fix things. Fix this._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope to hear what you think. :)


	3. Chapter 3

“Pidge...I’m sorry.”

Coran called me Pidge. He called me by my name, not Number Five, and that was when I knew it was bad. There were several other resistance fighters being hurried into med pods all around us, and he could have been helping any of them but he was standing there at the control panel for Matt’s, and he actually used my name.

I didn’t want to turn around and face him. As long as I was looking at Matt’s sleeping face in the pod, and no one was saying anything, I could tell myself it was fine. The pod could fix him. He would wake up tomorrow and he would be fine.

“Pidge…” It was Lance. At my side. The others were helping the injured; he and Coran were the only ones with me.

“No,” I said. I don’t know what I was saying no to. No, I’m not turning around. No, I’m not going to listen to Coran. No, Matt isn’t dying…

We put him in the pod and Matt smiled at me, like he was telling me it would be all right. He trusted us. Trusted _me_. It was like if I let anyone tell me he wouldn’t be fine I was letting him down. And...dad. I was letting dad down. “Keep an eye on your brother for me,” he said, before he left for Earth. How could I have failed so miserably?

There was an arm around my shoulders. Lance. When had he done that? I didn’t mind right now; if it wasn’t there I might not have been on my feet.

“I’m sorry, Pidge,” Coran said again. “The pod isn’t able to compensate enough for the extent of his injuries to be able to stabilize him and begin the healing process. I’m...I’m afraid there’s nothing to be done.”

I wasn’t looking at him and he said it anyway. “No…” I spun on him. “There has to be _something_! We can’t just...just...”

“Pidge...” Lance said. I don’t know where he was going with it. I still don’t know if _he_ knew where he was going with it.

“Coran, do something!” I shouted. My chest was heaving and Lance was holding onto me with both arms by then, trying to calm me down maybe. He was saying things, and I don’t remember what. The memories of that night have always been a little hazy. But I know he was there.

“I can have the pod give him something to stop the pain, and we could release him now. The pod will have had enough effect to give him a bit of time, at least...you would be able to say goodbye.”

I think I was shaking. Some sort of shock. The first time Lance was all but holding me up by the time we opened the pod and lowered Matt out. This time I start to turn back to the pod and Lance has disappeared. I’m swaying on my feet.

_This_ time? What…?

“I’m sorry,” Coran says one more time. “But we’re losing him.”

Coran never said it that way. 

But this isn’t a memory anymore. Everyone else has disappeared, too - the resistance fighters and my friends helping them. The infirmary pod room is empty. 

And Matt isn’t the one in the pod behind me. When I turn to it again, it’s Lance suspended inside - the same gaping, scorched wound in his torso. 

“Lance!” I’m shouting, but there is no sound from my throat anymore.

Lance doesn’t look peaceful, asleep in the pod. Not like Matt did in that moment. He isn’t unconscious. His face has contorted with pain and when the pod opens he screams. 

I scream with him.

***

I wake with a gasp, tangled in sweaty sheets. “No, no…!”

Without thinking I reach out, expecting Lance to be there to tell me it was only a dream, but my fingers only meet emptiness. I curl up, gasping, struggling for air as I clasp at the sheets.

It’s been years since the nightmare about Matt was that intense. Certainly even longer since it led to a panic attack like this, but here I am. Maybe because it was different this time.

“Lance…” When it used to happen, back on the castle or after we got back to Earth...he would be there. Or if he wasn’t, I would call him, and he would talk me down. I reach for my tablet, but I manage to stop myself.

I can’t call Lance. I can’t wake one of my parents, either, because then I would have to explain why I couldn’t call Lance.

It takes a few minutes, but when my breathing is under control I kick the last of the sheets off and drag myself from the bed. I’m not getting back to sleep tonight. I find milk and cookies I probably don’t need in the kitchen and bring them with me up to the small lab on the roof. All of my equipment is there.

Lance helped me and my dad build it two summers ago. Hunk helped some, too, when he visited for a few days. It’s nothing fancy - four walls and a roof at one end of the house that you have to reach by a ladder - but it’s a step up from sitting out on the shingles as kids. Matt would have loved it; it’s kind of like the tree house everyone wants when they’re little, just on top of our house rather than in a tree. And there are still plenty of shingles to sit out on over the rest of the roof, if I want to, to look at the stars.

The lab greets me with it’s usual clicks and beeps and whirrs - the sounds of the equipment I leave running constantly. Equipment searching for signals, space radio chatter, and messages from friends, among other things.

Friends. I punch up my connection to the intergalactic satellite relay Allura and Lotor left. It’s the only thing that gives Earth the kind of long-distance access to communications that we had with the castle. Earth technology can only reach so far in real-time.

Granted, since there’s only one, it means not everyone on Earth has access. But most people on Earth don’t have family and friends on other planets, either - alien life being a real thing is still pretty new here - so it hasn’t been a problem. Except for the few of us who do. The relay is supposed to be controlled by governments, the Garrison...but I have a back door. And like Matt used to say, what the Garrison doesn’t know…

I smile to myself as I type out a text-based message to Hunk. He’s been spending most of his time on the Balmera the last few years, and it should be morning there by now.

<What are you up to?>

The response comes within minutes. <Pidge! Hey! You know I’m gonna see you in like, two days, right? Allura’s coming by in the castle tomorrow to get us.>

<Us? You’re bringing Shay? I’d love to see her.>

<Yeah! You know, big day and all, I guess. Actually Keith’s already here, too. Figured it’d be easier for the castle to make one stop.>

The Balmera is one of the epicenters of the new alliance. The Olkari and some of the other more advanced races collaborated to build a sprawling space port and station in orbit above it after the war ended, and Hunk has been working with teams there to help Allura develop a new way to replenish the Balmera after crystals are taken. Her Altean energy still works, and after successfully teaching Lotor to do it she’s confident enough that their children will be Altean enough to manage it, but eventually the genetic well will run dry.

I could be there now. They’ve asked me to join them more than once, but after losing Matt I felt like I needed to be at home on Earth with my family.

<How’s Keith?>

<Fine,> Hunk answers. <Moody as usual. Complaining about why we need ceremonies. I’m convinced he’s only going because he wants to see everybody - and I may have seen his mom low-key threaten him.>

<Krolia’s coming too?>

<Sadly, no. She is still awesome and I wish. She was here for a while, but she got called off somewhere. Blade of Marmora business or something, I guess. Keith wanted to go with her and she made him stay so he’d come to Earth.>

I laugh. <Sounds like them.>

The next response takes a little longer than the others. <You ok, Pidge?>

I stare at the blinking cursor, not knowing how to answer. <Yeah, why?>

<Isn’t it like, three in the morning there?>

<Yeah, so?> I bite my lip guiltily. I want to tell him, to tell someone, but...what if I don’t have to? What if I can fix it first?

If I want to fix it. Don’t I? Am I really still afraid that Lance’s feelings aren’t what he thinks they are? Am I still afraid that mine aren’t?

<Okay…> Hunk types. <But you tell me if anything is up. I mean it. Don’t be dumb.>

I laugh again, just once, sharply. _Too late for that._

The new nightmare happens again, the next night. Lance is the one dying in the pod. The one I failed to protect. When I wake up it’s easier to calm down the second time, but there’s a message waiting on my tablet from Lance.

It’s the first time he’s contacted me on his own since he left here that awful afternoon, and my heart skips a beat. Then I realize it’s only about when everyone gets here.

<I just realized everyone’ll be expecting us both to be at your place. Last time we talked about it I think we were all going to meet there. Is that still okay…?>

Oh. <Yeah, that’s fine. You don’t have to ask to come over here…>

I think that’s when I realize I’m afraid of something else entirely, now.

_Is it too late?_

***

_Six and a Half Years Ago_

The morning after Matt died I woke up on the floor of the pod room. My armor was still on, and it was uncomfortable, but it felt like waking from one of those sleeps that turns out to be hard and deep no matter what the circumstances. Sleep born of exhaustion, mental and physical.

I should have been cold, but there was a blanket draped over me and a pillow stuffed under my head. From my place curled on the floor I could see resistance members in pods and their friends and families near them, most still asleep. There were one or two obvious gaps...others who didn’t make it.

No, I _was_ cold. Just on the inside. I glanced up, and the pod above me was empty. Of course it was. We’d let Matt out of it...said our goodbyes...right here on the floor…

I shut my eyes tight, trying to simultaneously will the memories away for now and carefully pack up the parts I wanted for the future. I was already shaking again. I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders, ducking my head under it, but I realized there was more warmth near me than the blanket. When I started crying an arm wrapped around me from behind and a chin and forehead nudged my shoulder.

“Hey, it’s m,kay…” The words were garbled, half-awake, but I still recognized the voice. It surprised me enough to stop the tears for a moment.

“Lance…?” By the time I turned over he was blinking, a little more awake, looking at me in concern. His brow furrowed in that way he had. I noticed most of the main pieces of his armor had been shoved into a pile a couple of feet away. A second blanket and pillow seemed to suggest he’d been here near me, all night.

“You okay?” he asked.

I opened my mouth to say I was, but that wasn’t true, and something about the fact that he’d stayed with me made me brave enough to be honest. “No.”

“That’s okay, too,” he said.

He looked unsure of himself, of whether that was the right thing to say. I almost felt bad about the fact that him saying it unstoppered my crying. But then that seemed to be okay with him, so I didn’t worry about it anymore. He wrapped his arms around me there on the floor, and I remembered more of the night before. How he never left. How when Matt was gone he was here to hold me together.

“W-where…?”

“Frozen in a cryo-pod down below, until we can get him home to your family,” Lance told me, as gently as he could.

“And…?” I sobbed all over again when the rest hit me, no less fresh than it had been last night. “Oh god, Shiro…?”

“That’s not Shiro,” Lance said. His voice was sharper at that. “And he’s...alive, but also down below. Frozen. He can’t hurt anybody else.” He swallowed. “Our Shiro is still out there somewhere. He has to be.”

So much changed that day. I never doubted Lance’s motives again. I never doubted he cared about me. I didn’t know then exactly _how_ he cared, but...still.

He stayed there with me, because I couldn’t muster the energy or the will to move yet, and he seemed to understand that. Hunk and Allura came later in the morning, with trays full of bowls of food goo for everyone waiting here with their sleeping, healing loved ones. They came to me and Lance last, handing us bowls as we sat up and sitting down beside us with their own.

All of us were so quiet as we ate. Keith and Coren found us not long after that, and they both grabbed bowls as they trickled in and joined the circle on the floor.

“Keith...your clothes,” I said quietly.

Gone was the dark Blade of Marmora uniform. Instead he was wearing his old clothes, red jacket and all.

He shrugged. “Yeah...I’m staying.”

If we were going to form Voltron now we needed him. But none of us said that. We didn’t have to say it to understand. 

We were family, and family doesn’t always need words.


	4. Chapter 4

It’s strange standing in the same back yard, with Lance, where everything fell apart almost a week ago. A conspicuous distance separates us as we watch the sky, waiting for the pod from the castle to arrive. 

As popular as Allura and the lions in particular are on Earth, it’s easier for them to land the castle in the middle of nowhere and meet us here, privately, for reunions when they happen. So here we are, not really knowing what to do with ourselves, and I think Dad is finally noticing something isn’t quite right. He keeps going in and out of the house, as if he’s both keeping an eye out for the pod and trying to give us some space. 

Space is the problem. We’ve barely seen each other; we’ve been trading off sitting with Shiro in case anything happens, sometimes catching each other in passing, and that’s about it. 

“If we tell them today, we might have time to try reviving Shiro before the ceremonies later this week,” I say. “I mean just think if we had that to announce…” He raises an eyebrow at me. “I know, I know, reasonable expectations...I’m just thinking out loud.”

He smirks a little. “When do you not?”

“Yeah…”

I want to say something else, but I don’t know how, or what I would say if I did. Lance is rocking back and forth on his heels, his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets - that same jacket that’s literally been across the universe and back. It’s more worn than it used to be, the colors faded, but he’s never retired it. And strangely enough the only thing I can think right now is that if we don’t fix this, I’ll never be able to “borrow” it from him again without asking, and he’ll never come storming back over here in mock anger looking for it. 

A quickly-moving dot catches my eyes on the horizon, and within a moment or two the pod is on us and slowly setting down on the grass. 

When the hatch opens Hunk is the first one off, and comes straight at us. I don’t have a chance to protest before we’re both practically swept off our feet in either of his arms. 

“You guys! We’ve got to do this more often, I mean it,” he’s saying. 

Lance is laughing, and I let him grab Hunk into an embrace of their own first, once Hunk puts us down. I can already see the two little white-haired bullets darting across the grass, and I’m pretty sure Lance’s attention will be occupied elsewhere soon. 

“Uncle Lance!” Two voices chime together, a boy and a girl, as they latch onto Lance’s legs and nearly knock him over.

“Holy crap it’s Alfie and Erva! My favorite Alteans. Just don’t tell Coran.”

“I heard that!” Coran calls from inside the pod. 

I shake my head as Lance runs off with Alfor and Honerva, nearly knocking Keith over in the process. 

“Sorry, Keith!”

“No, you’re not!”

“You’re right; I’m not!” Lance runs back quickly though, and catches Keith in an ambush hug before the shorter young man can ward it off. “Come on, you know you love me though.”

Keith gives him a withering look at first, but it doesn’t last long before the act fades and he cracks a smile. “You’re impossible,” he says, hugging back briefly before Lance lets him go and follows the twins. Allura calls after them to be careful just as Alfor trips over a tree stump and Lance barely catches him before he hits the ground. 

“Whoa! Take it easy, buddy.”

Keith looks at me. “Tell me again how you’ve dealt with that one for so long?”

I snort noncommittally as I hug him, trying to smile a little so it doesn’t seem off. As I pull back Hunk is looking down in a way that’s kind of suspicious though; it only a takes a moment to figure out he’s giving my fingers a once-over. I cross my arms to hide them, trying not to make it obvious.

Did he know Lance was going to propose?

“Pidge?”

“Stop staring at me, Hunk.”

“Something’s wrong.”

Of course something’s wrong; it feels like someone stabbed me in the chest. But I can’t say that, so I just stare across the lawn and hope he’ll let it go. 

He doesn’t. Hunk grabs my arm and starts dragging me around the side of the house. “Keith, run interference!”

Keith blinks after us; I don’t think he understands what’s going on. “What?”

“If anybody notices we’re gone, distract ‘em!” Hunk answers.

“Right…”

I don’t have the energy to stop him as he gets me around the house and far enough from everyone else to say what he wants. 

“What happened?” he demands. 

“N-Nothing...let’s go back…”

“Don’t be dumb. Pidge.”

I let out a breath, looking everywhere but at him. “Did you know?” I ask finally “That Lance was going to…” I can’t get the word out but I end up looking down at my empty fingers, and I think he knows what I mean.

Hunk’s shoulders droop. “Yeah...he told me the last time we talked a couple months ago. Needed somebody to calm him down, honestly; he was kinda bouncing off the walls…”

Ouch. 

He peers at me with concern written all over his face, and I have to duck my head again because it’s difficult to bear.

“What happened?” he asks again, more gently. “Are you two okay?”

I just stare at the ground, and then at him, and back to the ground...I start shaking my head, and he pulls me into his arms before I can even say anything.

“You don’t want to hug me,” I mumble into his shoulder. “I’m the idiot.”

“You’re both idiots.”

“Fair point…”

“Do you want to tell me?” 

I’m quiet for a moment. “He was excited?”

Hunk hesitates before answering. “Is it just gonna make whatever’s going on worse if I tell you I’ve never seen him that excited…?”

***

When I make my way back around to the back yard, I find my way to Allura’s side. She’s at the edge of the yard with my mom, watching Lance play with the kids.

“I think that one’s going to make a good father to my grandchildren someday,” Mom is saying. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t see me yet, or she wouldn’t have said it out loud. 

“Mom!”

Her eyebrows hit her hairline as she looks over at me. Yeah. She definitely didn’t see me before. “Sorry, Katie,” she laughs. 

Allura smiles when she notices me, and skims right over the awkwardness. “Pidge! It’s been too long! I haven’t seen your hair that way; it’s very nice long.”

“Figured it was time, I guess. It was always long when I was younger; I kind of missed it.” I don’t know why it took so long to let it grow back out. We got back to Earth and I just kept cutting it.

Maybe keeping it that way made me feel closer to Matt; I don’t know. His glasses are still in a safe place in my nightstand, but even though I never needed them I was still shoving them onto my face most days until about last year, too. Sometimes I still do, especially when I’m working. 

“Allura...could I talk to you?”

“Certainly; what’s on your mind? You know, you really should come to the Balmera Station sometime; we could use your mind.”

“Maybe. Um...I actually mean...alone, though, if you don’t mind. If I’m not interrupting anything.”

Mom just shakes her head, and Allura raises her eyebrows for a moment, but she takes my arm like the good friend she is and lets me bring her into the house. We push inside the sliding glass doors and lean against the counters in the kitchen, and she is studying me like Hunk was. I think she can see something, too. 

“Allura...I um...look, I don’t know if I should have asked about this a long time ago, or if I shouldn’t be asking at all and I’m way out of line...I don’t know. I guess you’ll tell me. But…”

 _He wouldn't shut up when he called me,_ Hunk said. _I mean, really._

Lance sometimes has more direct access to the communications array than I do, when he’s at the Garrison, and sometimes if he just uses my backdoor. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure he borrowed my lab one evening about that time a few weeks ago. 

“Would you mind telling me what happened with you and Lance?” I ask, quiet. “I know it’s none of my business. I know that. I’m sorry. I just—”

“It’s all right, Pidge. Truly. But you haven’t asked Lance?”

I blink. No. I never did. Why haven’t I? Was I afraid of the answer I would get? So instead of asking I just assumed what, for me, would be the worst answer? 

“I…”

She looks at me like a slightly disappointed mother, and I guess I deserve that. But she takes my hands, and she answers me. 

“Pidge...what happened between myself and Lance...he ended it. And he should have. I was...not in a good place, at the time. I was lonely. I didn’t want to believe that I might have been taking advantage, but looking back I think, perhaps, that I was.” She sighs and shakes her head. “I know I was. I will always regret that.”

I don’t really know what to say to that, so I just let her go on. 

“It was a pleasant time, but it needed to end before it became something much more unhealthy. He was the one to see it first - that we were going nowhere. Or he was the first to speak up about it, in any case.” She squeezes my fingers. “Pidge, he loves you very much. And I think something is wrong, but whatever it is I hope it can be fixed. It would be such a shame otherwise.”

“I...thanks...” I feel like I should be saying more, because she was kind enough to tell me what she did, but I can’t really form any other words. 

Allura embraces me for a moment, and I’m finally able to get something else out before she leaves the kitchen. “Hey...I-I don’t think he blames you. If it helps, I don’t either.”

She nods in thanks, slightly, looking back over shoulder. “I can never make excuses for it, but thank you. That means a great deal to me.”

I slip back outside a few minutes later, after some good old fashioned staring at a wall and trying to figure out where my head is. Allura has rejoined the others, and most of them are grouped together now and seem to be discussing everyone heading back to castle, us included. Lance glances my way for a moment, but I have to look away. 

No, I can’t blame Alura. Because I think, at the beginning, I was doing the same thing. We’d come back to Earth, and missing Matt was hitting me all over again, and Lance had been there for me after it happened and he was still there when I needed him and...

But I’m not doing it anymore. I haven’t been doing it for a long time. I’m not lonely for just someone; I miss Lance. 

***

Everyone helped keep me sane, after what happened to Matt. That’s what family is for anyway. But even though Hunk made sure I ate and Allura was always there if I needed to talk at someone, Lance was the one who was always just...there. Beside me. 

He was the one asking Hunk to make something, he was the one ordering me to go find Allura to talk to if I was acting too pent-up, and he was the one asking Keith for help forcibly dragging me to my room to make sure I actually slept instead of working myself to death for distraction. He trained with me, sat with me, let me rant about absolutely nothing if Allura wasn’t available. He let me cry on him in the middle of video game nights. It was always hard to put a finger on, but though the others had their parts, Lance was the one I latched onto, in some sort-of more significant way. 

One night in particular, I still think about a lot. Sometimes I wonder if Lance does. We’d just had a meeting with Matt’s resistance group, a couple of months after he died. The whole time I felt like they were looking at me, wondering how I was maybe. A few of them asked. 

I said I was fine, but I was anything but. I only managed to hold it together until they left, and I didn’t even make it all the way back to my room. I slipped into one of the small observation rooms instead to cry instead and it was like the stars were laughing at me. 

Who did I think I was? they were saying. A sixteen year old girl who couldn’t keep it together for one night after losing one person? Well...two people. Shiro counted. This was a war. We were probably going to lose more people. None of us knew how this was going to end. 

It was just a bad night. Irrational thoughts and fears and guilt cascading on each other. But at some point a hand appeared on my shoulder and when I calmed down enough to look Lance was there. I think he’d been there almost the whole time, just sitting beside me on the steps down to the observation window. 

When I noticed him I leaned into his shoulder and he put an arm around me. “So...milkshakes and video games?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” I said, laughing once. “That sounds great.”

But we sat there for a while longer, not really wanting to move. I watched him, while we sat, thinking of everything he’d done for me, and...I don’t know. I still don’t know why I did it.

“Lance…?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m going to do something really stupid, and you’re not going to overthink it, and then we’re never going to talk about it. Is that okay?”

He looked at me curiously, an eyebrow cocking for a second or two, but maybe something in my face gave it away because then he just sort of smiled, and I think he knew what I was going to do.

“Sure...”

So I just did it. One of my hands went to his face and I leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips - one he returned. It only lasted a moment, but when I pulled back he was blushing, and I think I was too. I had to let my head fall to his chest to keep it from just getting worse.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “For everything.” Then I jumped up and told him I was going to get out of my armor and meet him later if he was still up for video games. 

“Yeah, uh, I’ll get on the milkshakes.”

He’d agreed to never talk about it, and we didn’t. Even when I turned around almost a year after we all got back to Earth and he was still there. When we started dating I was sure he would say something, but he respected my wishes from that night, and he never did. We never talked about it. 

Maybe we should have. 

***

“So that’s it, and I’m the biggest idiot on the face of the planet. Or the galaxy, I guess, since I’ve kind of been all over it...well I don’t know, I may not be that dumb, but I’m definitely the biggest idiot on Earth...hey, you don’t have to agree with me!”

A huff of warm breath blows over my hair, and the soft furry torso under my head rumbles as if in laughter. I glance up at Green’s carefully neutral face. 

“Sure, laugh it up,” I sigh. I feel around at my side for a flower stem and come up with a weed instead. None of it is real anyway - we’re in some sort of liminal space between Green’s head and mine, really - but I’m still briefly annoyed. 

Another rumble, and I smile. 

“Yeah, I missed you too.” 

I turn over on my side and snuggle farther into her green fur. She shows me more of what’s been going on out there, and I let her rummage around in my head a little in return, because I don’t really feel like talking anymore. It’s nice just to be here. 

After a while, though, Green starts to nudge me with a question. 

“Yes, I’ll talk to him...when I can figure out what to say...what do you mean just do it? I have to do it right...no, I am not going to overthink and never do it!”

Except part of me is almost afraid I might. And Green seems to be telling me waiting could be worse. That he just needs to know how I really feel. 

“And how do you know?” I mumble. She doesn’t answer; instead she shakes me off and stands, forcing me to at least sit up. “Okay, okay. Geez.”

As I get to my feet in the meadow that isn’t really there, Green nudges at my legs, trying to get me to look in a particular direction. When I do I realize we’re not alone anymore; several yards away, we’ve somehow been joined by Blue, Red...and Lance. 

“What did you do!” I hiss at Green. She just rumbles and nudges me forward again as Lance turns and sees us. 

Lance blinks. “What…? We’re usually alone in here.” He glances down at Blue. “You did this, didn’t you?” It must have been Blue, if one of them helped. Red is looking at me like she’d rather just eat me.

“I’m sorry, I think Green had a hand in it too, but I didn’t…” I sigh. “I think they want us to talk.”

“Oh…” He scrubs at the back of his neck anxiously, shifting his weight. He looks around at this space that we’re in. “Doesn’t seem like we’re getting out of this, does it?”

Blue grumbles and nudges him forward now, confirming she’s the one who was complicit in this. I close some of the distance between us and and open my mouth, because I can’t make him start. Not when this is my fault.

“Lance, I…” 

“You could have asked me, you know,” Lance says, before I can manage to finish. He isn’t really cutting in. I don’t know if anything else was really coming out anyway. 

“What?”

“You were talking to Allura earlier. I’m pretty sure I know what you were talking about; I’m not quite that dumb.”

“You’re not dumb; I’ve never thought that. What are you…?”

“That’s not the point,” he says, slicing at the air with a hand. “The point is that if you wanted to know what happened between me and Allura you could have just asked me. You’ve had years to ask me.”

“I know...I’m sorry.”

“Are you ready to hear what I have to say now? Rather than just assuming you know how my brain works?”

I just nod.

“Look, was it nice at the time? Being with Allura? Of course it was! That was all I thought I’d wanted since I met her! But that was all it was...wish fulfillment, I guess. I mean that’s all it turned out to be, besides helping a friend who wasn’t doing so great. Honestly I wasn’t doing so great either. We helped each other. And that was it. We weren’t in love; not like that. Ever.”

He shrugs. “And if you’ve misread how I’ve acted around her since then, I’m just—I care about her. As a friend. A lot. You know? That’s all.” He huffs. “I thought what we had was different. We didn’t get together after what happened to Matt; we waited until we got back to Earth, and stuff had settled down. I thought it was...safe...I don’t know. I mean I know we helped each other too, still, even though it was different, and that’s fine, but I thought—!”

Lance stops, and even though this is all in our heads he’s trembling a little. He almost looks like he’s breathing too hard. 

“But I guess I was wrong.”

“No,” I say quickly. “I was wrong. I was just scared, Lance. I think I wanted it to be real so badly that I had to assume it wasn’t because if I let myself think it was and I was wrong, I…and-and I made a mistake. A huge mistake.”

He just stares. Like he doesn’t know what to do with that.

“Lance? I was idiot. I know that. Can this please just stop now? I miss you.” There. It’s all out now. Maybe Green was right. 

But after another agonizing moment Lance sighs as if something is still wrong. 

“And I love you,” he says. But it comes out in a way that makes it sounds like he doesn’t know if I feel the same way.

And then I’m trying to remember if I have ever said that to Lance in a way that wasn’t joking, and...I don’t think I have. I haven’t. How have I not told him?

“Lance, I—”

He winces and holds up a hand to stop me. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”

“I mean it. I’ve...meant it for a long time.” I may be only realizing it now myself, but there it is.

So why does it look like it hurts him? 

“Lance…?”

He shoves his hands in his jacket pockets and backs up a step. “Pidge…” His voice breaks. “I’d really love to just pretend the last week didn’t happen. But it did. And um...I-I need to deal with that, okay?” 

“Okay...” There’s so much more I want to say, but I’m afraid of making it worse. At least we got somewhere, right? 

Lance scrubs a hand through his hair and takes a heavy breath. “Yeah...I’m sorry.” 

He turns to walk away, and Blue goes with him. In a moment they’ve faded from view. 

Red remains for a moment. She doesn’t look quite like she wants to eat me anymore, but she still doesn’t look happy.

“Shouldn’t you be bothering Keith too?” 

Red snorts, and Green translates for me. 

“You did that, huh? Maybe go do it some more and stop staring at me like that?”

Red huffs again, but she goes, leaving me alone with Green. I sink back to the grass, and Green kind of wraps herself around me and lays down. 

“I guess that could have gone worse…?” I mumble. “No, it’s not your fault. It probably wouldn’t have gone much different no matter when it happened.”

***

I wake up in Green’s hangar a short while after that, and of course it’s Lance I run into in the corridor between hangars when I go to look for the others. Because that’s just my luck. 

We come close to bouncing off of each other and just stop and stand there awkwardly, not really looking at each other. 

“We um…” I clear my throat. “We should talk to the others about Shiro. It’s getting late.”

He seems to relax when I find a topic to settle on. “Yeah, yeah, right. We should.” He motions in the direction of the main lounge, where we’ll probably find them. “I’ve got your back.”

And nothing else may be right at the moment, but at least there is that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Comments are always very much appreciated, and I try to answer all of them! Thank you!!


	5. Chapter 5

“Do you really think it’ll work this time?” Keith asks. 

He’s leaning toward Lance and I almost unconsciously, teetering away from the counter he standing against but still holding onto it with one hand, like he needs it for it for support. He was the first to really tune in when we started talking. The others have stood by, mostly silent, as we’ve have tried to explain why we think it’s a good idea to try waking Shiro again. Maybe they’re afraid to hope...I can understand that.

“I think it has more chance of working than it did before,” I say.

Somehow we’ve all ended up in the kitchen. Hunk, his mother, and Shay were putting the finishing touches on dinner, but they’ve long since stopped and Hunk’s mother herded the twins out of the room at some point.

“And either way, don’t we have to try?” Lance adds. 

Just like he promised, he’s had my back. Not that anyone really seems to want to shut us down, exactly. At least, I don’t think so. Why would they? But there is a mix of expressions around the room, and I expected that. It’s a difficult subject for all of us. 

“Of course we should,” Hunk says. “But...and not to be downer, but I mean can we even form Voltron here without freaking people out?”

“We’re doing it for the ceremony,” Keith points out. “Which I still think it stupid, by the way.”

Lance shrugs. “We could pass it off as practice if anyone notices. Besides, we’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“But Shiro is not,” Allura points out gently. “And we would need to be near him, ideally.”

I start nodding. “To have the best chance, yes, but if you’re worried about people wondering why we’re doing it, let me call Dad. He has a connection with Iverson, and Iverson has connections at the care facility. They could probably get Shiro released to us long enough for us to bring him out here to try it. With any luck, it’ll work and we won’t have to bring him back.”

Coran’s head tilts to the side a little. “I beg to differ on that point, Number Five. Even if we are successful, he will have a good deal of recovering to do.”

“Right…” I knew that. I did. Even with the physical therapy the Garrison has been paying for, he’ll still need time. I’m getting ahead of myself. But...still. This could really work. 

“I would feel much better if we could bring him here, yes,” Allura says. “But...Pidge, Lance, as much as I would love for this to be true - for it work - I am concerned that your hopes may be too high. Even if his condition is improved, it may do nothing.”

“I know,” I say, probably too quickly. I know she’s only looking out for us. She does that. Maybe even more so ever since we’ve been more or less without a Shiro. 

“We have to,” Keith cuts in. 

None of us quite expect Lotor to be the one who speaks up next, from where he’s been quiet at Allura’s side. 

“If there are any complications with the authorities or people of this planet, they can be smoothed over,” he says. “But all feelings aside, if I am allowed to have a voice in this matter, I don’t believe there is anything to discuss. I may have never known this man - the real him - but the man I did know had his memories, and when he was not being controlled by that witch he was still a good man. One of the best I have known. And that man sacrificed himself for the safety of those he knew, and the universe at large. We owe this to his counterpart.”

The kitchen is silent. I don’t think any of us needed quite  _ that _ much convincing, but maybe Lotor just needed to say it. 

***

Sometimes I still have nightmares about what happened with the other Shiro, too. I guess it’s all tied around what happened to Matt, but the one part that isn’t so much...how I treated him when we finally woke him up…

I was so ready to stare down my brother’s killer. To spit in the face of the monster who took Matt from me. I wasn’t prepared to look into the horrified eyes of a man who remembered killing one of his closest friends against his will.

But when Allura had mastered her alchemy at least enough to sever the other Shiro’s connection to Haggar - enough for us to be sure she couldn’t gather any information from him if we were to take him out of stasis - that was what we found. Not a monster. 

“I cannot say who he will be when he wakes,” Allura had said. “Only that Haggar cannot see through him or track him any longer. Anything else depends on how she was exerting her control - whether his personality was completely overridden with programming and he was manipulating us, or if he believed himself to be Shiro and she could merely take control when she wished to...I don’t know.”

We told ourselves we were prepared for anything. We’d mourned our own Shiro all over again, in a way, knowing it was likely we would never find him now even though of course we hadn’t given up. 

I don’t think we were ready. I wasn’t. When we ejected him from the pod we made sure he remained unconscious long enough to get a dampener onto his weaponized arm and get him into a holding cell. He woke up behind a force field, with the rest of us hovering anxiously on the other side.

At first he didn’t seem to remember what had happened. “Guys…? Why am I…? What happened?” He took in the force field and the clamp around his arm and us outside the cell staring at him with nothing but confusion on his face.

I was convinced he was faking it. It was wasn’t Shiro. It couldn’t be Shiro. Shiro didn’t kill my brother. 

“You don’t remember anything?” Keith asked. He sounded skeptical himself.

“Anything about what? Why am I in a cell? What’s going on?”

“What is the last thing you do remember?” Allura asked pointedly. 

“The coalition meeting? And…”

Lance was hovering at my shoulder. He never left my side. “And?” he asked. He sounded guarded. Not like himself. I think he was trying to be strong for me. For all of us. No one had it easy that day. 

“And...and…” Not-Shiro trailed off, and I guess that was when it came back. I know that now. Then I still thought it was all a ruse, and now it just hurts to remember. 

“Shiro…?” Keith asked hesitantly. 

“Oh god…” It was so quiet at first. His eyes went wide and I had never seen that much horror on his face before. “No...I...oh no…”

“He’s faking…” I growled. Lance’s hand closed on my shoulder like a gentle anchor, reminding me to wait. To see what happened. I never changed my mind that day, but I went quiet for a little while longer.

A sudden, floundering gasp came from the other side of the barrier, as if the man standing there, whoever he was, couldn’t get enough air. “Those people...I...no. NO…”

“We believe you were being controlled by Haggar,” Allura was saying. She seemed sympathetic, but wary. “I...I am sorry. That’s why we can’t risk releasing you. You—”

Not-Shiro dropped to his knees with an agonized sob, and I heard Lance take in a sudden breath. His fingers tightened on my shoulder. When I glanced back his eyes were damp. Confused. 

The figure on the other side of the force field was shaking. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I’m sorry. I—” He cut off with another pained sound. “Matt…”

“Don’t you dare say his name!” I screamed it before I could really think, and not-Shiro’s eyes found mine.

“Pidge...I am so sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t—!”

“Don’t talk to me!” The memory gets blurry after that. I think I was shaking, and Lance had both hands on my shoulders by then. Lance was trying to talk to me; trying to calm me down maybe. 

“Please, you have to believe me! I—”

“You’re a fake! You’re faking! You killed my brother! You’re not Shiro!”

I was crying. He was crying. Lance was crying even while he was trying to keep me calm. I think we were all, to some extent, crying. Hunk and Coran had latched onto each other in the corner for moral support. Keith and Allura were trying to diffuse the situation. 

I ran out soon after that, but I caught a glimpse as I went of Keith lowering the forcefield just long enough to slip into the cell to kneel by Shiro’s doppelganger. 

***

“You don’t have to worry about it, Katie. That’s what I thought you’d ask. I did the paperwork earlier this week.”

Dad smiles at me from the screen at my station on the bridge of the castle. Keith hovers over my shoulder because he followed me up here as soon as I left the kitchen. We’re both staring at my dad now.

“You...what?” I ask.

“They’ve agreed to release Shiro temporarily, as long as it’s directly to Empress Allura,” Dad says. “He can be picked up in the morning. They’ll have him ready.”

Keith lets out a breath. “Thank you, sir.”

“Thanks, Dad…”

“Just do everything you can to bring him back to us,” he smiles. 

“Will you be there in the morning when we come to get him?” I ask. I share a glance with Keith, who nods slightly and seems to be thinking the same thing I am. “You should come out here with us, Dad. You should be here.

Dad blinks. “Well, I mean...if I won’t be in the way.”

“Of course not,” Keith says. “Besides, when Shiro wakes up I’m sure it’ll do him good to know you’re safe.” He winces immediately after it comes out, because I’m sure we all have the thought that follows it.  _ But Matt isn’t.  _ “I mean...uhm…”

“It’s all right,” Dad says quietly. “And if no one else protests, I would appreciate the opportunity to be there.”

“Thanks again, Dad. For dealing with that. I wasn’t sure how we were going to convince his doctors…”

Dad smirks a bit. “His doctors aren’t convinced it’s a good idea at all, but Iverson has his ways.”

Keith snorts. “I’m sure.”

When we’ve gotten off the line with my dad I slump in my chair and Keith paces away from my station, crossing his arms anxiously. “Well that’s one step down,” he says. “Maybe...maybe I should take a pod and go over there tonight. I haven’t seen Shiro since the last time I was on Earth. I mean I know we all usually...do something or whatever, when we’re all back here but…”

But it would be awkward right now anyway, so I’m probably going to leave Hunk and Lance to whatever they’re up to tonight as it is, and…

“You should go. It’d probably be good for there to be someone with him tonight.” I do my best to smile reassuringly. “Make sure you talk to him; I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear how you’ve been.”

“I really hope he’s been able to hear us…” Keith paces closer again. “Pidge...thank you. For looking after him when I haven’t been here. You and Lance both. It...it means a lot to me to know he hasn’t been alone. I mean I know you’ve been doing it since we found him, but I haven’t really...said that. Thank you.”

“It’s okay, Keith. We knew.”

***

I was angry at Keith for those weeks after we woke up the other Shiro. For accepting him so readily. For taking his side. 

I wasn’t thinking about the fact that he’d known Shiro the longest. That he would be able to tell the difference between a confused clone with Shiro’s memories who didn’t mean us any harm when he wasn’t being directly controlled and something evil that might be faking his feelings or manipulating us.

Allura even used her magic to read him as best she could, which she said she hadn’t been able to do while he was unconscious and frozen, because she wasn’t that practiced. But awake, she could tell, eventually, that he wasn’t lying. 

I still didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it then, and I still don’t know why. Maybe it was because believing he wasn’t Shiro in any way at all was easier than dealing with the fact that I couldn’t look at him. If I had to look at him I had remember that night, and it just hurt too much. It was easier to see him as nothing more than a weapon we were commandeering for our use. It was easier to hate him.

And I regret it, every day. 

Before he willingly went to his death the other Shiro asked me to forgive him. More than once. Not an inordinate amount of times - he usually respected my wishes and gave me space, which, looking back, just proves he was as much Shiro as he could be - but more than once. 

The last time was just before he left. Everyone else was upset to see him go; even Lance, who had tried to remain more aloof for a while, because of me. 

We had a plan, and we all knew how it would end. We were going to wormhole near the base where Haggar was holed up, fake some explosions, then shut down the castle and mask our lifesigns. Not-Shiro would take a pod to the base, returning as the triumphant weapon who had dealt with Voltron and its’ paladins to take her by surprise. 

We knew he wasn’t coming back. That was why I let him talk to me at all before he went, though I still made sure it wasn’t alone. Lance was right there, at what seemed to have become his station beside me. Honestly, I guess that’s why everyone looked at us funny when we told them we were dating a year after we got back to Earth. They’d probably assumed we had been for quite a while and just hadn’t bothered to say anything.

“I’m sorry,” not-Shiro told me again. “For everything. And if you can’t forgive me, I wanted to be sure you know I understand why. It’s all right. I just...I am so sorry.” He sighed. “I...I hope you find the real Shiro, someday. I know how much he cares about all of you, because I do.” 

His hands twitched, as if he wanted to reach out and remembered he shouldn’t. Not with me. And I listened to him, but I still couldn’t look him in the eyes. 

“I hope we find him, too.” That was the most I could give him. That was all I had in that moment.

The others gave him better send-offs, at least. They thanked him, Lance shook his hand, Keith even hugged him just for a moment. I don’t know what other conversations were had, but I try to remember that except for me, he left knowing that most of us cared for the part of him that was Shiro. He didn’t leave unloved. 

But I’ve never been able to get the pain on his face when I couldn’t forgive him in the hangar that last day out of my memory. It sits in a vault where Lance’s face from a week ago in my parents’ back yard has now joined it as one of my biggest regrets. 

What made it worse was what came after. We sat huddled in the dark in a small lab in the center of the castle that we had shielded, so no scans would pick up the life signs and small amount of power coming from it and we didn’t have to shield the entire castle that way. We had one console active, for minimal light and to listen to the encrypted feed from the other Shiro’s comms. He’d insisted on the link himself so all of us would feel more comfortable with the plan - so we would know what was happening and that he wasn’t betraying us. 

Something about listening to his disembodied voice somehow, strangely...made him more real to me. I didn’t have to look at him and remember what Haggar made him do to Matt. I didn’t have to remember the twisted smile she’d put on his face. I could just listen, and it sounded like Shiro. Even when he presented himself to Haggar, when he was pretending to be her loyal creation, it still sounded more like Shiro than I had left myself see him as in the weeks since we’d woken him up.

I don’t know when I started crying. I don’t know when, exactly, it really hit me. But it wasn’t long before we knew he was about to end it - that he was about to activate the devices he’d taken with him and planted through the small base before they found him out.

And they did find him out. And they fought. Maybe that was when it hit me. Either Haggar or one of her druids caught him with a crackling of energy and when he screamed I was back on Arus, with Sendak on the other end of a comm link torturing the real Shiro to make me give myself up, and it sounded exactly the same. 

He was still Shiro. And he was going to die.  

And the last thing we heard from him before there was nothing but the roaring of explosions was a quiet but convicted, “This is for my friends...” 

We still technically had the capability to speak back through his comm, but we had all agreed that we wouldn’t. It was too risky if Haggar found out too soon that we weren’t really dead. But it was the end, and I didn’t know if he would hear me but I had to try. I lunged at the button on the console to transmit.

“Shiro, I’m sorry! I forgive you! I know it’s you! I forgive y-” 

I’ll never know if he heard me. I cut off when there was nothing but static, suddenly, and quiet, and my own sobbing. A strangled sound from Keith as he went to his knees. Lance wrapped me in his arms as I went down, too, and I could feel him shuddering as he held me. 

***

“Keith?”

“...Hmm?” 

“Do you...ever think about the other Shiro, anymore?” I ask quietly. I found myself following him down to the pod bay, trying to work up the nerve to broach the subject. I’m standing in the cockpit with him as he runs pre-flight checks, and time is running out for me to get back out of the pod.

He blinks. “I uhm...yeah,” he sighs. “Sometimes. I guess mostly I wonder if there was another way...I mean I know things would be a lot more complicated if he was still around but...still.”

“Yeah…”

My arms are crossed, and Keith cocks his head like he’s studying me. Maybe because the arm-crossing was always his signature move, but he seems to understand that something is wrong. I guess that’s good, because I’m not sure what else to put into words how. 

“He really did understand, you know. He told me did.”

I swallow. “That doesn’t make I how I treated him right...” 

“No...and the way Allura treated me after she found out I was part Galra wasn’t right either. But I understood that too.”

“That doesn’t change anything...” 

When we found our Shiro again, it was like a second chance. Even if nothing with the other him had happened I would have wanted to do anything I could for him, of course, but...because it did happen...is that why I’ve never been able to accept what the doctors have tried to tell us? Is that why I’ve always HAD to believe Shiro would wake up someday? So I could make amends to him if I couldn’t do that for the other him I mistreated?

“Nobody’s perfect, Pidge. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. The point is you’ve grown since then.”

I can’t help making a face. “I guess. Doesn’t stop me from being stupid, though.”

Keith laughs. “I hear that. Just...I guess we have to  _ keep _ growing. If we stop doing that, what’s the point?”

I blink, and then I’m blinking harder. “You’re right. I just...what if this doesn’t work, Keith? Are you as afraid of that as I am?”

What if nothing happens? What if we have to accept that our Shiro isn’t coming back? 

Keith stands up, and I’m not sure what he’s doing until he hugs me. It’s a little awkward - it was never really his thing except with Shiro, and though he lets us all hug him now, he still never initiates - but it helps. I bury my face in his shoulder for a moment. “I’m sorry...I know this is hard for you, too.”

“I am scared,” he admits. “But we have to try. You and Lance said so yourselves, and you’re right. We can’t let the fear of failing keep us from doing it.”

I let him go so he can leave, but he calls to me before I step back out of the pod. 

“Hey, Pidge?”

“Yeah?” I glance back from the hatch, and he leans over the back of his chair and smiles reassuringly. 

“I hope you and Lance can fix whatever’s going on with you two.”

My mouth opens and closes a couple of times before I can answer that. “Wh-what are you talking about?”

“I’m not as clueless as you guys think I am, you know,” he smirks. “Well...not all the time.”

***

I don’t really sleep that night. I lay in my old room and stare at the ceiling, mostly, drifting off into dreams of when things were better. 

The next morning, when we gather in the pod bay to head to the care facility to collect Shiro, I manage to pull Lance aside before we have to board the small ships. 

“Hey, listen, I know you need some space, and that’s...I understand. I really do. I just…”

“You can still _ talk _ to me, Pidge, geez, it’s not like I’m freezing you out. I wouldn’t do that,” he teases gently.

_ And that’s why I don’t deserve you, _ I think. Because what did I do to the other Shiro for weeks years ago but exactly that? 

_ Nobody’s perfect, Pidge. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. The point is you’ve grown since then. _

“I know you wouldn’t,” I sigh. “I just mean...anyway…”

“Pidge?”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry I misjudged you so horribly just because of my own...issues, and my own insecurities, and I’m sorry I didn’t say something a lot sooner. We could have worked all this out a long time ago if I’d just said something, but I was selfish. I’m sorry...and-and I needed to say that.”

For a moment while he just looks at me I think I’m holding my breath, but then he smiles a little and I have air again.

“Thank you,” he says. He finds my hand and squeezes. “Let’s...talk when this is all over in a few days, okay? We can go for a drive or something. How’s that?”

“As long as I’m driving,” I tease.

He grins. “Not on your life.” 

And just in case I wasn’t sure what he might mean when he says talk, I relax a little more when he leans in and kisses my cheek before he releases my hand. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I appreciate all of your comments so much, and I can't wait to hear from you!
> 
> (Also, look for the next chapter pretty soon! I'm trying to get the main gist of this story done and posted for season 6 comes out!)


	6. Chapter 6

I don’t remember the last time we were all in the same room. Of course, the last time we were together and Shiro was awake, would have been before the battle with Zarkon...so long ago. 

Now, though, since we brought Shiro back to Earth when we found him? We’ve all spent time with him since then, but it’s not often together. 

We’re so rarely all together on Earth as it is. Allura and Lotor will be here, or Hunk will visit, sometimes with Shay and his mother, or Keith will find the time between his blade duties...but being together is so hard now. I guess it would be the same for any adult group of friends - it’s the kind of thing your parents warn you about; that it’s harder to keep up with people when you grow up and real life life takes over - but it’s always seemed so strange to me. For us. That we saved the universe together but now we have our own lives.

It’s nice just to stand here together, in the black lion’s hangar with Shiro, even though he isn’t awake to know we’re doing it yet. We’re huddled around the gurney the care facility sent with us to transport him in, like we’re collecting ourselves before we try this. Like we’re trying to come to terms with the fact that if it doesn’t work, this is the closest we will be to being together again. 

I don’t know if we would ever give up hope entirely. But the small hope that’s kept us going the last few years would take a huge blow, and…

But at least all of us are here. We’re in this together.

“Did anything happen last night?” I ask Keith. “While you were with him?”

Keith nods. He doesn’t look up from staring down at Shiro, and he sounds hopeful. “I think he was trying to squeeze my hand back, like you said he did with you. There was some stuff with his face...I don’t know. I know it’s more than I’ve seen before since we found him. I just hope it’s enough.”

Coran and Allura have already disconnected the portable versions of everything hooked to him. No longer than this will take, we’ve been told he’ll fine. The tubes and monitors now hang hooked to the metal around the edge of the gurney, and it’s almost strange after so long to see Shiro without the tethers that have been his constant companions.

He’s smaller than he was. Of course he is. Even with the physical therapy, any clear muscle definition is gone. He’s still a big guy - the hospital scrubs don’t exactly hang off of him or anything - but his flesh arm doesn’t match the metal one anymore, and somehow that’s the part that’s most jarring. 

I’ve watched it happen over time, in that bed in his room at the care facility, but something about moving him here is making me see all of the changes all over again. Someone has kept Shiro’s hair cut the way he used to like it, at least - and I’ve always suspected Iverson saw that it got done, honestly, because it wasn’t me - but gray peppers the part of his hair that used to still be black even though he’s only 32 by now. It could be genetic, or it could be what the Galra did to him, and I’m not sure I want to know which. It was always bad enough wondering just when and why the shock of white hair over his forehead went that color the first time they had him.

A hand lands on my shoulder with a reassuring squeeze, and Lance is there, beside me again. We haven’t worked everything out yet, but after this morning I know we will. I can’t wait for that. The last week or so, somehow, has felt like forever. I am never letting him go again. 

“Are we ready?” Allura asks.

“As we’ll ever be, I guess,” I say. 

Keith nods, but he seems reluctant to release Shiro’s hand. “Hang on, Shiro...we’re coming.”   


There are any number of people here that could easily pick up Shiro as he is now on their own, but Allura doesn’t let anyone else try. We pull back the blankets and she scoops him up gently into her arms. We follow her and Keith into the black lion’s cockpit, where another mattress from one of the castle’s infirmary beds has been placed on the floor against the wall at the back of the space. Coran is going to ride in here with Keith to keep an eye on Shiro. 

Dad will be waiting in the castle with Lotor and Shay and Hunk’s mother and the twins, because we agreed it might not be good for him to be there as soon as Shiro wakes up. Seeing him would bring up the question of Matt, and that should probably wait at least a little while. A few minutes enough for Shiro to orient himself, anyway.

“The next time we’re all standing here, Shiro will be awake,” Keith says, as Allura gets him settled. “We have to believe that.”

I catch him in a brief hug before we all split up to our lions. “Whatever happens, you still have us, Keith. You should visit more either way, okay? Promise.”

“Deal…”

Lance takes my hand as we all retreat from the cockpit, and I think I see Keith smile knowingly at us as we go. I glance over my shoulder at the last minute to stick my tongue out at him, and he laughs.

I hope he’ll have a reason to keep that smile on his face. 

 

***

 

The void is exactly as I remember it. Darkness around us and and the glow of colors lighting our way. But this time, when I open my eyes, our circle is tighter. Whether we did that subconsciously ourselves, or…?

I could very nearly reach out and touch the others if I wanted. We must have done this ourselves. Maybe we don’t see each other so often anymore, but we will always be family. Somehow this only proves it more, to me, and when the sixth circle appears between us again, like it did years ago when we tried to get to Shiro, I hope as much as I have since he moved a week ago. 

“Shiro!”

“Shiro, where are you!”

I call for him, we all call for him, and like it did last time a faint form starts to take shape in the midst of us. 

“Hey, it’s working!”

“Come on, Shiro!”

The form in the center circle flickers.

“No no no, you can do this, Shiro, come on…!”

“We’re here! You’re safe...Shiro? Shiro!”

Just for a second, I can see his face. It flickers into view and then is gone again, waning in and out with the rest of him, and my chest is tight, and how can it feel like that? This isn’t even my body in here.

“Shiro, we need you! Please!” Keith calls. 

“Shiro!”

“It’s safe. You’re safe,” I say again. “Shiro, please, come back!” 

Can’t he see us? None of us are wearing armor. We have our bayards in our lions with us, because we needed to use them to get here, but we remembered that we usually showed up in the void looking however we did on the outside. We thought it might be easier to convince Shiro he was safe - that the war was over - if we didn’t look battle-ready. 

And finally, finally the shape between us begins to steady.

“That’s it!” Keith says. “Come on, Shiro…”

“You’ve got this, Shiro!” Lance echoes.

“Come on, man, we’re right here. Just hang on!” Hunk calls. 

I try to join them, but even though I don’t have a throat in here to clog, really, hope and anticipation have clammed up my words. I don’t have any more. Not right now. I share a glance with Allura and she seems to be in a similar predicament. I see her mouth move, just a little. Shiro’s name in barely a whisper and that’s all.

_ Please _ , I think. 

_ Please. _

A gasp from the center of the circle as the figure there snaps into sudden focus. Shiro, in armor, because that’s probably the last thing he would remember wearing. Or the last thing he would want to remember wearing, maybe.

“W-wha...what? Guys?”

I sob. Allura gasps. The others are making similar noises. 

“Shiro…” Keith is the first to get a word out, but his voice breaks on it.

“Keith? What’s going on?”

Keith takes a deep breath and lets it out. “You need to wake up, Shiro; you’re in a coma. Or...something.”

“I...what?”

“What do you remember?”

There is so much I want to say, but we agreed before we came in here to try not to confuse him if we were able to get to him. We have a better chance if we don’t overwhelm him. 

Shiro blinks at Keith, face blank for a moment as he tries to remember, but then he looks down. That look...we all know that look, and I shiver.

“The Galra…” he says. “After the battle...Zarkon! Is he - ?”

“He’s gone, Shiro. It’s okay. Everything is okay. The war is over,” Keith tells him. “You’re safe...we’re all safe.”

Shiro seems to try to process that for a few tics, and then he is looking around the circle at us and his eyebrows are climbing higher. 

“But...how long…?” He stops on me, and maybe it’s because the difference in my age is probably the most obvious. 

“Katie...you...you grew up.” It’s hard to tell in here, with the colors of our lions sparkling around us, but I think his eyes are wet now. “You all grew up.” 

“It’s okay, Shiro,” Keith says gently.

“How long?” he asks again. He looks back at Keith, more demanding now. Keith doesn’t seem to want to answer, but Shiro isn’t giving him a choice.

“Almost eight years…”

Shiro flickers.

“No you don’t!” Keith reaches out, we’re all crying out after him, and when Keith grabs him, catches Shiro’s arms and holds onto him, we realize we can. We can move out of the circles. We can touch. We didn’t know that before.

We’ve all latched onto Shiro in an instant after that.

“Don’t you dare!”

“Shiro, don’t!”

“Shiro!”

My arms are around his chest. “Shiro, please!”

“But…” he gasps. “What...what’s the point...? You don’t need me anymore...you did it...” He sounds proud, but that’s still not the direction we’d prefer for him to go right now. 

“That’s bull, Shiro,” Lance all but snaps. 

“We don’t need you back to fight a war,” Hunk says. “We need  _ you _ .”

“ _ I  _ need you,” Keith echoes. “We all need you.”

Shiro blinks again. He doesn't seem entirely convinced - he just looks so...I don’t know; does it seems to him like the battle and whatever happened to him after just happened? - but his shoulders start to relax from the tense bunch they were in. His arms are still hanging limply at his sides even as we’re holding onto him, but that’s something. 

“I...Keith…” I almost miss the rest, it’s so quiet. “I’m tired...”

“And you can rest now. There’s no more fighting. Please, just come back..."

Allura, whose Altean ears can hear better than the rest of us and must have heard it too, speaks up quietly. “Shiro, there is so much more you can do...but only when you’re ready. And only if you wish to. But you will never have the chance if you do not come back with us.”

He looks over his shoulder at her, and I’m sure now, that his eyes are damp. However that’s even possible in here.

“I missed…” He glances around the circle at all of us again. “Everything…”

“Not everything,” Allura says. “Really look at them, Shiro. Look at yourself. All of you are still so young. There is so much more ahead of you. Ahead of ALL of us...and we can do it together.”

“You need to meet my mother,” Keith chuckles.

“Your...what?”

“And you haven’t missed my wedding yet,” Lance grins, winking at me. A shiver goes through me, and I’m grinning into Shiro’s chestplate to hide my red cheeks. 

“Your what??” Shiro is saying. 

“O-or mine,” Hunk speaks up. 

All of us look at him with a collective chorus of “WHAT?”s. 

And we’re all grinning then, and laughing a little. Even Shiro, and he’s trying to return the embrace we have him in, but it’s a mess because there are so many of us. He manages to get Lance’s arm and my shoulder and half of Keith. I look up at him again until I have his attention. 

“Come back,” I say. “We’re a family, and we’re missing part of it without you.”

Shiro answers with something like a sob, but he smiles…

And everything starts to fade away.

 

***

 

“Shiro!” 

I wake up in green calling for him, and we don’t have our helmets but the communications channels in our consoles are open and I can hear everyone else doing the same. Waking up, disoriented.

“What happened!”

“Did it work??”

“Keith, what’s going on over there!” Lance is saying. 

I can hear Keith, but he isn’t talking to us. I think he’s talking to Coran, but I can’t make out what Coran is saying in the background.

Finally Keith’s voice becomes clear again, excited and breathless. “Separate and set down, and everybody get over here; I think he’s waking up!”

We don’t waste any time. Once we’ve all landed separately we sprint from our lions. Lance converges on me and takes my hand again. The way he squeezes it, I think he’s just as anxious as I am. 

_ Please… _

When we all clamor up the ramp and into the black lion’s cockpit, Keith in on his knees on the edge of the mattress on the floor, leaning over Shiro, holding his hand and talking to him quietly, trying to rouse him. Coran is sitting by his head, resting a hand on his shoulder and waiting, hopefully. 

Shiro seems to be stirring, and we get there just in time. 

We’re all there when his eyes flicker open. 

It goes about like it did in the void. Half of us can only get his name out and the other half of us can’t get anything at all around the lumps in our throats. I’m one of the later. I think I make a strange squeaking sound. 

The doctors weren’t able to tell us what might happen if he woke up, because he wasn’t in a normal coma. Waking up from something like that would have been a much slower process. But his condition was always different, and Allura theorized that if he did wake up the energy from us and Voltron and the void might help him, too.

“Hey…” Keith manages, after a moment. “Do you remember what happened in there just now?”

Shiro tries to form words, but it doesn’t seem to be working at first. He just smiles, and nods once. The tears from the void manifest them themselves, but they’re happy ones now. 

“I know,” Keith says. He laughs, but it sounds like a sob, and I don’t blame him at all. Shiro tugs on his hand, making a motion like he doesn’t want to be flat on his back anymore but he can’t do anything about it himself. “You should rest - “ Shiro raises an eyebrow at him and tugs again. “Okay, okay…”

Coran helps Keith pull him up against the wall behind him and we all kind of bend over, or sit, or kneel down so we’re all on the same level. As soon as he’s upright Keith latches onto him from the side and I duck into his chest. We hear the amused breath, and then the others are closing in around us to hold on, too. Shiro doesn’t seem to mind at all. I feel his chest hitching, and Keith is shuddering beside me. They’re both crying and so am I. 

I think we’re all crying, but this time it’s the kind of tears we wanted. They’re the kind we needed.

Shiro keeps trying to talk, clearing his throat and trying to make sounds, and at some point Coran produces a pouch of water. “Take your time, my boy.”

That seems to help his progress, but none of us are in a hurry. We’re perfectly happy to sit here in our Shiro-pile. He listens while we tell him things, trying to catch him up but not cover too much all at once. We don’t talk about the war. We tell him we’re on Earth, and what we’ve been doing since. 

Hunk tells us about proposing to Shay. “We were gonna wait a little while to tell everybody - didn’t want to steal this one’s thunder,” he smirks, shoving Lance’s shoulder. He seems to take what Lance said in the void as confirmation that something has changed and we’re doing better.

Shiro looks at Lance expectantly, and the question is clear. Who is HE marrying?

Lance blushes furiously, and that’s when he must remember that I never actually said yes, because he glances at me sheepishly. 

I take his hand, twining my fingers with his. His sudden grin and the tears in his eyes when I nod slightly reassure me again that everything is going to be all right. I’m not expecting it, though, when he tugs me closer and kisses me, right there in front of everyone. I thought he wanted to wait for that - we still have a lot to work through, after all - but I’m not complaining.

Shiro laughs, and this time his vocal chords have warmed up enough that it brings the sound of his voice with it. He doesn’t seem surprised, just amused. 

“...I missed...all of you."

The words - words, finally, out here and not just in the void - shock us all into brief silence. 

“What?” Shiro smiles.

We get him into a wheelchair before too much longer, and down the black lion’s ramp to the ground. Shiro squints at the sun as he breathes in the outside air. We’re all so focused on him we don’t notice when Lotor comes down the castle’s ramp, squinting at the sky himself. 

When Allura sees him she breaks off, calling across the space to the castle to ask if something is wrong.

He points to the sky. “Three Galra fighters!” he calls back. “But I didn’t call for anyone…”

There are other Galra ships in orbit, carrying other guests from the Empire for the festivities. The fighters seems to be coming straight for us. 

“Perhaps something has come up,” Allura says, more to us than anything. But it doesn’t sound like she suspects anything dire. 

Shiro tenses, but we’re quick to reassure him. “It’s all right,” I say. “The Galra are our allies now. No more war, remember? I know it’s take some getting used to.”

“No…” Shiro says. “No, that’s…!”

“That’s an attack run!” Keith cuts in, at the same time that Lotor calls out something almost the same. 

We have our bayards, but no armor. No cover other than the castle and the lions, and we don’t have time to get to the castle. We have seconds. Lotor is shouting into his comms, but either there is no answer or he isn’t getting one that helps.

“Back into the lions!” Lance shouts. 

The fighters open fire. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I appreciate all of your so much! I hope to hear what you think. :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well the timing of this chapter worked out strangely well, considering season 6 haha. Obviously this is in a completely different continuity now though, so there are no spoilers here or anything. :) Trigger warnings for panic attack/ptsd in this chapter though.

Blue and Black are the closest lions, and Keith and Allura are the only ones to make it and take off as the fighters open fire. The rest of us are pinned where we are. 

Hunk and his bayard canon and Lance and his bayard’s blaster are the only weapons we have that are useful at all against attack from the air. Both of them cover the rest of us with fire as Coran and I try to push Shiro under Red for more protection.

The rocky ground isn’t helping the wheelchair. Coran is reaching for Shiro as if to just carry him, and Red and Green are moving to cover us themselves when one of the fighters swings back around, and time seems to slow down.

There are two lions in the air and three fighters. Of course one is coming back while it can.

I see Keith break off following the one he’s after to fire at it. Hunk fires his canon at it from the ground. I know Coran with his Altean strength is more than capable of snatching Shiro up on his own but I reach to help anyway, because I can’t do anything else.

Hunk’s canon grazes one wing of the approaching fighter and Black’s lasers catch the tail, but even as the damaged ship spins to the ground it fires at us.

Shadows loom over us, not quite fast enough. Red and Green, as Lance spins around himself to warn us. To usher us under the lions. To do something.

“Pidge!” I see him coming at me. I see how wide his eyes are as the fighter goes down behind him. It’s final laser blasts glint toward us and the concussion and dust cloud it raises throw Lance into us, toppling us all to the ground under Red.

Everything is hazy, for a moment. My ears are ringing. I’m coughing and I can’t...breathe. Or see. Or hear, really. Dust everywhere…

Faint sounds. Groans? Coran cursing, I think. Lance...Lance is shouting. Why is he shouting? Where is he? Where is Hunk?

I manage to turn over, feeling every bump and bruise and scrape and hoping Lance isn’t far. I can hear him. Still so faint, but so close. Where…?

I almost roll on top of him. He’s right beside me, practically shouting in my ears. My hearing must still be recovering from the blast.

“Lance…!”

Blood. Red and scorch marks from the Galra fighter’s lasers, a swath across his left side and the inside of his arm. As my vision clears I can make out his wild eyes as I lean over him. The pupils blown out from the pain. 

“Lance!”

“How bad is it!” Coran calls. He and Shiro have rolled to a stop several feet away. The wheelchair is on its side, wheels bent and twisted, but Shiro looks all right, just bruised and scraped from sliding across the rocks. Coran is bent over him.

“We need a healing pod!” I call back.

I focus on Lance again. His arms are flailing, hands closing and opening, hovering over the wounds as if he wants to do something about the pain but not wanting to touch anything. I catch one hand and hold it close to my chest. 

“Lance, I’m right here! Come on, look at me…”

It takes a moment, but he manages to focus. He squeezes my hand. His shouts have faded to quick, pained gasps.

 “P-Pidge...Pidge...Pidge…”

“I’m right here…”

His other hand, his injured arm, reaches for me, fingers brushing my cheek. “Pidge…” 

Is Coran coming? Movement, out of the corner of my eye. He’s coming.

“I love you,” Lance whispers.

“Stop it! You’ll be fine.” I’m already reaching out to Green, having her move with Red to keep us covered and provide a way to get to the castle. 

“I...I-I love…” Lance cuts off and groans, and I don’t know if he’s really listening to me. I don’t know if he can.  

My ears are still ringing. He was even closer to the blast. Can he even hear me? I reach for his face to make him look at me, forming my words clearly just in case. “You’ll be fine! It’s okay!” 

His eyes are wide. I still don’t know if he can hear me but he’s paying attention, now. He’s watching my lips and his eyes are damp. “Pidge…”

“I love you, too! I love you...and you’ll be okay. You’ll be fine. Okay?”

Coran moves in at my side as Lance smiles at me weakly, but we all flinch when a new explosion behind the lions tells us another of the fighters has gone down. Still one more to go. I catch sight of Hunk, still out there, half hidden under Yellow and still firing at the sky.

“Green will cover you - you have to get Lance to the castle,” I say. Coran nods and scoops Lance up. At first I think he winces because Lance cries out, but then I realize how stiffly he’s moving.

“Are _you_ okay?” I ask.

“Just a few bumps, Number Five. I’ll get him there.”

“Is Shiro all right?”

“As far as I can tell.”

“I’ll stay with him, I - Ah!” I try to get to my feet, but my right ankle screaming at me sends me right back down to my knees.

“-idge…!” Lance, gasping from Coran’s arms. I reach up to squeeze his hand briefly.

“I’m fine! It’s just my ankle. Coran, go!” Lance is getting weaker. His eyelids are drooping, There’s no time.

Coran goes, sprinting as fast as he can across the desert ground under Green’s cover.

I crawl back to Shiro, who blinks up at me, dazed. “Lance…?”

“Coran’s taking him a healing pod. He’ll be fine. He’s fine…”

So why am I shaking? I try to stay calm, but Shiro is looking up at me with that look that could always see straight through me, and I don’t know when I start to sob. Shiro can’t sit up on his own, but he takes my hands and squeezes them gently between his own.

“Lance will be fine, Pidge,” he’s saying. “He’s been through worse. He’s tough.”

Matt was tough. Matt had been through so much, too. That didn’t stop him from dying. That didn’t change anything. He looked at me the way Lance did before Coran took him. Smiled at me. Trusted me.

And he died.

“You...you...you don’t understand,” I gasp. I can’t breathe anymore. I can’t stop crying. I know what’s happening to me and I can’t stop it right now.

Shiro’s hands tight around mine. His flesh hand moves farther up my arm, as far as he can reach. Trying to hold on to me - to help. “Katie, it’s okay. Breathe…”

Of course Shiro knows what’s happening. If anyone would, he would. But he doesn’t know why.

“You don’t understand,” I whimper again, between gasps.

“Talk to me…breathe.”

He shouldn’t have to do this. Not here. Not right now. He just woke up. He shouldn’t be trapped under a lion in the middle of a firefight trying to keep me from coming to pieces.

“Pidge…”

I’m trying to breathe. I’m trying. “Matt...Shiro, Matt’s gone...I’m sorry…”

Sorry to tell him this way, sorry for everything I did to the other him, sorry I hurt Lance. Sorry for everything…

“W-we got him to a pod...almost immediately, but...but he still…”

Shiro swallows. “You found him…” 

I nod. “For a while. And Dad. What happened was...was months later. In the war. He...I can’t lose Lance too,” I gasp. “I can’t.”

“I’m so sorry…”

I don’t decide to do it, but I bend over almost into Shiro’s chest, just trying to get enough air, and he lets go of my hands and wraps his arms clumsily around me, instead. His grip is weak, but it doesn’t matter.

By the time someone is pulling me up from behind, I can breathe. I’m still crying, silently, but I can breathe. Shay and Dad have come back for us. Shay picks up Shiro, and Dad becomes my crutch. With his free arm he reaches out to take Shiro’s hand briefly as we go. Something passes between them, but I know it isn’t my business.

Beyond the castle, the last fighter goes down and I can hear Hunk whooping, somewhere.

By the time we make it to the cryopod bay Lance is already under. Coran is scowling at the control panel and my chest clenches.

“Coran…?”

He glances up, blinking. “It’s...the pod is still working to stabilize him.”

“It hasn’t yet?” My voice tics up in pitch. 

“It’s only been a dobosh or two,” Coran says quickly. “I’m sure we’ll know something in a few tics more.”

I hobble more quickly, effectively dragging Dad with me straight to Lance’s pod as he tries to keep up to help support me. I lose my balance anyway, almost colliding with the transparent front of the pod.

“Lance, come on…” Beyond my splayed fingers he still looks restless, even in pod-induced sleep. A flash of memory...the nightmares from earlier this week...and my throat tightens again. “Come on…!”

Behind us Shay deposits Shiro on the steps that ring the room and lead up to the pods, as Hunk catches up to us. Hunk crouches down to sit by Shiro, to help keep him sitting up. But when I glance over my shoulder they’re all watching me. Or watching the pod, maybe.

“Coran!” I call.

“No change yet, but not for the worse either,” he says.

This is...this is the same pod, isn’t it? I know Coran didn’t do it on purpose. It’s one of the closest pods to door and he was in a rush. But the realization hits me like a sledgehammer that drives me to my knees.

Dad is calling to me through a haze of sound - blood rushing in my ears and my own gasping.

“I can’t,” I’m saying. “I can’t...I can’t…please…”

_Please. Please don’t take Lance, too._

“-atie! Katie...listen to me. Katie…” Warm hands on my shoulders, tugging me to look at him, at my Dad. I’m trying, but I can scarcely see him through my tears.

“He has to be okay,” I whisper. “Tell me he’ll be okay…”

“I can’t,” Dad says softly. Over his shoulder, I can just make out Keith and Allura barreling into the pod room and coming to a stop.

“Katie, I want that boy to come out of there all right as much as you do, but I can’t promise you that. Sometimes things don’t go the way we want.”

How is this helping? How…?

“But look around, Katie. Whatever happens today, you are not alone.”

I’m still shaking, but my hazy mind manages to recognize what he’s saying as almost the same thing I said to Keith...less than varga ago. Keith, who makes his way over to us now, tentatively, and crouches at my another side and wraps his arms around me and it’s not very Keith, or it wouldn’t be usually. But right now it’s the only thing that makes sense to me even though he doesn’t say a word.

Keith, who could have lost one of the people he cares most about today. If he had, the rest of us would have been there.

Just because Shiro is sitting over there on the steps, awake and with us again, doesn’t mean Lance will come out of that pod alive and well. I want it to mean that. But…

Six and a half years ago Matt looked up at me from this spot, on this floor, as we said our goodbyes. He smiled at me. It was okay, he said. There wasn’t any pain anymore. We talked like nothing was wrong for...maybe ten or fifteen doboshes as he weakened. The pod had given us that much time, at least. I can still hear that thready version of his laugh.

Lance never left. How could he leave now?

But somehow, I’m calm, held between Dad, and Keith. Over their shoulders are Hunk, and Shiro, and Allura, and Coran, and Shay. My family. And it’s quiet. Well. Coran is pounding at the console, but otherwise it’s quiet. 

I reach out again to press a hand to the front of the pod.

_Please._

Coran shouts something else and kicks at the base of the console. My breath hitches, but then there’s a beeping and he lets out a whoop.

“There it is! He’s stabilizing!”

I sob. When I glance up at Lance’s face, I think I can almost see it smooth out into a more peaceful rest, but it may be my imagination.

“H-He’ll be okay?” I choke out. 

“Just a tic...yes. Yes! It was touch and go there for a bit, but he’ll be fine!” 

I don’t know whether I’m laughing or crying, or what is what in the cacophony of reactions from the others as Dad helps me back to my feet. Keith is still there, smiling at me, and at the pod. He squeezes my shoulder and I know he’s saying he’s glad none of us lost someone today. But when he opens his mouth nothing comes out, and I don’t blame him. I just hug him, instead.

Keith tracks back to where the others are on the steps, to sit beside Shiro, but I stand at the pod for a while longer, watching Lance sleep and balancing on my good ankle. Coran asks if I want to get into a pod myself, and I tell him maybe later.

“Number One?” Coran asks, turning to Shiro. “You could use a spell in a pod yourself - give yourself a head start on recovery.”

“I will, Coran, just…” He glances at Hunk braced against his back and Keith against one side. “Not right now,” he says, a smile tugging at his lips.

I join them before too much longer, taking up the space at Shiro’s other aide and tucking myself under his arm. He squeezes my shoulder a little, as much as he can I suppose, and doesn’t seem to mind at all. Allura and Coran sit beside us, too, while Shay and my Dad retreat from the pod room.

I think at first that maybe we’re going to talk more, but we don’t, not much. Not like we did back in the black lion. Instead we’re comfortable right where we are, just being together.

Allura gets up at one point, and disappears briefly. When she comes back she has news of what happened.

“Surviving members of one of the old factions managed to infiltrate one of the other ships,” she says. “They scrambled communications between the castle and the fleet before they attacked. We’ve re-established channels now...any threat has been neutralized,” she sighs.

After that we’re quiet again. The barely perceptible hum of Lance’s pod is the only sound. Shiro, soon enough, drifts off on Keith’s shoulder. Hunk falls asleep against Shiro’s back, and I find myself dozing, too.

***

This time, when I wake up on the floor of the pod room amongst pillows and blankets that weren’t there when I drifted off, I smile. Lance isn’t the one beside me - I’m sandwiched between Shiro and Hunk, and apparently at some point we all ended up horizontal - but Lance is safe.

No one died today.

I sit up slowly, trying not to disturb anyone. Shiro, Hunk, and Keith are all still here, Hunk snoring away. I suspect Coran and Allura of being the ones to pile the pillows and blankets around us. They left something else behind - the twins, curled up against Hunk’s other side. The three-year-olds must have wondered into the sleepover situation and insisted on joining in.

I don’t know how long we’ve slept, but when I look up at Lance’s pod, his wounds are gone. At some point the process must have been paused, when he was healed enough for it to be safe. He’s been changed into one of the white and gray suits that can better withstand the pod’s processes.

My ankle still aches, but not as badly as it is did. It’s easier now to get to my feet and pad over to the pod...oh. My shoes have been removed and set aside on the steps. So have everyone else’s.

Just as I’m thinking about going back to the console to check the stats on Lance’s progress, the pod hisses. I almost jump out of my skin as it opens, and Lance stumbles out into my arms.

“Hey…!” I say. I’m trying to be quiet, but I’m smiling so widely I feel like my face might crack.

Lance latches onto me as his forehead lands against mine. I stumble back a step with his weight, and the pain in my ankle makes me overcompensate pushing forward again, sending us back to nearly slam into the side of the pod. That helps steady us and Lance is already shifting his hands to my face, as if he already had a plan. I wrap my arms around his waist as he kisses me, over and over, grinning.

“Hey,” he breathes, between kisses.

I don’t know how long we go on like that, and I don’t care.

Lance is alive. Lance is safe. Lance is mine, and I am his.

“Yeah okay I’m gonna have to get used to that…”

Lance breaks off at the new voice, and his cheeks go red. “Shiro…!”

I’m laughing. Lance is taking in the others, now, and I don’t think he realized they were there before. Shiro is the only one who’s woken up, at least. And he seems better. He can get his metal arm under him, at least. He’s managed to use it to push up into something like a sitting position.

Shiro chuckles. “I keep forgetting you’re not teenagers anymore.” 

“And if we were what would you do anyway?” I tease.

“I’d separate you,” he answers, completely serious.

“Geez, Space Dad confirmed much?” Lance smirks.

We help each other over to where Shiro is. Lance notices my ankle halfway there and scowls at me for not saying anything. 

“I just twisted it, and it’s already getting better, I’m fine.”

We settle beside Shiro, stepping carefully over the others. Lance sits against him so he can take the weight off his arm, but not before Shiro pulls him into a long embrace.

“You were both there,” Shiro says quietly. “All of you were but...you two...you were with me the most. I think I’m starting to remember now.”

“You could hear us?” I ask.

He smiles. “You kept me from drifting too far. Thank you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I can't wait to hear what you think! I appreciate all your comments/feedback so much! And also, there will still be some fluff to wrap things up, I promise. ;z


End file.
